LF to hold sit-in demonstration outside CBI office in Kolkata

Kolkata, Dec 15 (IANS) West Bengal’s opposition Left Front (LF) said on Tuesday it would hold a sit-in demonstration outside the CBI office here on January 12 demanding punishment of those responsible for the multi-crore rupee chit fund scam and returning of money to duped depositors.

In a media release, the LF spearhead Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) on Tuesday said the sit-in would follow a statewide campaign on the twin demands.

Mass campaigns would be organised in all the districts and allies held before the offices of the district administrations as part of the agitation.

The CPI-M state committee, which met during the day, also lent support to the padyatra called by the Bengal Platform of Mass Organisations (BPMO) – an umbrella body of the Left mass organisations – from Singur to Salboni beginning on January 16 demanding setting up of industries and jobs.

Singur in Hooghly district once housed the plant set up by the Tata Motors during the erstwhile LF regime to produce the small car Nano. However, the company relocated the plant to Sanand in Gujarat following an intense and often-violent peasants movement led by the then opposition Trinamool Congress demanding return of land to those from whom it was taken for the project against their “will”.

The LF regime had drafted JSW Steel for setting up a Rs.35,000 crore integrated steel, power and cement project in West Midnapore district’s Salboni, but the project has been cancelled, with the company citing lack of availability of raw materials.

The CPI-M state committee reviewed the fallout of the jathas (rallies) taken out by the party across the state in November and claimed thousands of people had take part in villages, cities and towns.

It also condoled the death of workers in the closed and crisis-ridden tea gardens of Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, and Darejelign districts.

“Seventeen deaths have been reported in December alone so far,” the release said.